Tootsie: The Revival

I spent Monday prepping for tour, and Jameson spent it prepping for vacation (I'd say now is a great time to rob our house, except it's not because our neighbor across the street is a cop and there are cameras e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e on our block lol).

I cut up the caramels for Andrew, wrapping each piece in parchment paper and storing them in my coffee canister.
They're in the fridge so they'll be fresh and less likely to melt, then tomorrow I need to remember to grab them.

We ate random leftovers around to avoid throwing away good food. I did have to throw away a few things like some leftover cream from the caramels and an onion that never got used. We each had a little drink with dinner, just because.

At times like these, with a huge pile of Disney candy on the counter and the two of us going off on adventures, I am extra-glad we don't have children.

----------------------------------------------------------

Tuesday I woke up super early, and the cab was waiting for me.
It felt surreal. Somehow I never thought this day would come.

All of the flights went smoothly. I had packed my usual snacks, so only had to buy coffee at the airport.
And of course, Biscoffs on the plane! Love me those Biscoffs.

Oh, there was this cool vending machine at Philly airport! Jameson and I have seen something similar on an episode of Shark Tank.



It's pretty much just salads in a jar, but sometimes at the airport it can be difficult to find something healthy, that can also be easily carried onto a plane. I can see the appeal. However I didn't buy one this time.

I met our new bassist, Brandon, on the first flight. Seems like a cool dude. He and Jameson know each other from previous Orlando gigs.
Met the Reed 1, Kevin, on the second flight. He's fairly young, excited to be on his first tour. I hope he has fun!
Since neither Brandon nor Kevin had been on tour before, they had a few questions which I tried to answer.
I also bullied them into my foodie group :p

Upon landing we retrieved our luggage and got an Uber.
The hotel is nice, nothing crazy just a normal one. It is so, so weird to be here again. I'm definitely not in the tour mental space yet.


I retrieved my mutes, which I'd shipped to myself. Everything arrived intact.
I dug the caramels out of my bag (TSA didn't take them, yay!) and put them in the fridge for whenever Andrew gets here.
I took the provided covid rapid test, and once it came back negative, I called an Uber and took off to Wegman's.

Have you been to Wegman's? It's AWESOME. If you like Whole Foods or Fresh Market you'll love it.
I especially love their prepared foods section, which features both cooked take-home meals and raw one-person dinners that you can take home and cook. Meals like this one will be GREAT for trying out my Itaki!


I was weirdly nervous about getting raw meat...it's mostly that I don't trust these janky hotel refrigerators to keep food actually cold. But that's silly. I settled on a chicken marsala, pre-marinated with the mushrooms and herbs and sauce on the side. And I got some spaghetti'd veggies to go with it. I also got a box of barley, which I will have to experiment with to see what the cook time is like.

I got all of my usual foods--egg whites, yogurt, soup, protein shakes, berries, veggies--but also found some new things that I'm excited to try! Gosh, this is one thing I missed about tour: finding new and exciting foods in the grocery!


- Next to the oatmeal was this 5-grain blend which has oats, rye, triticale, barley, and flax. Nutritionally it offers a bit more, and only a few more calories than regular oatmeal, so I want to try it!
- Then there was that "Deli Pop" which seems to be a plain rice cake but made with a few other grains as well, very low calorie and kind of tasteless, now I know lol.
- The morel mushrooms are dried, I have always wanted to try morels and now here's my chance! I'll use them in an Itaki meal.
- The beans...I mean look at that packaging, how could I NOT try these! There were many flavors to choose from but only the Sweet Sriracha had his bean a$$ out like that, lol! They're quite tasty and good for you too!
- The smoothie, there were at least five different kinds but this nut butter one matched my macros so I wanted to try it :)
- The Mongolian jerky was on sale, why not!
- And the little white plum is actually a hybrid of some kind, a pluot perhaps, I've been wanting to try one of those.
- Then we have these coffee sodas. I knew about Coke's coffee + Coke in a can, but have never seen these! One is black cherry cola with coffee, the other is a citrus vanilla cream soda. They're high in sugar, but c'mon. I just had to try 'em.

Got my goodies home and ate a premade sushi for dinner, then began the daunting task of unpacking.
It took a while to get situated but eventually I had a cooking station, where Itaki and skillet and mess kit will live:


Next to that is all of the spices and oils and cooking utensils. Then my pile of nonperishables, grains, snacks, and fruits.
Of note is the half-loaf of bread, which is called "marathon bread" and has lots of seeds and grains, but also dried and pureed carrots, bananas, and apples mixed into the dough. The result is kinda wild! Tasty, but with kind of a strange texture. Anyway:


Then over by the door and above the fridge is the coffee station.
I shoved the crusty hotel Keurig under the sink and replaced it with my kettle, new coffee canister, and Aeropress.
The tea will live here too eventually.


All right. Ready!

When everything was unpacked I crashed and decompressed.
Chatted with Jameson as he enjoyed a well-deserved Beef Wellington at Gordon Ramsey's in Vegas.

Rehearsals tomorrow aren't until 2, so maybe I can sleep in.

------------------------------------

I slept pretty terribly, probably due to proximity to the elevator. Dingdingdingdingding all night long.

Tonight, earplugs.

This morning I made the 5-grain cereal in the Itaki and it turned out great.
I really love the flavor! It must be the rye. There's something naturally sweet in there that is pleasant.

I have the keys to the rental car but no one seems to want it and everyone wants to walk to the theater (look how motivated we all are), so all I have to do is get myself there this afternoon.

Because having a bunch of raw chicken in a hotel fridge makes me nervous, I decided to cook the chicken marsala single-serving meal I bought last night for lunch.

TikTok: CLICK HERE to watch me make chicken marsala in the Itaki

It went pretty well. I was expecting that the veg might be overcooked but didn't want to interrupt the chicken's cooking to remove them. Now I know, I NEED to interrupt it and get those veg out of there if I don't want them to be mush. The chicken itself turned out very nice, and the mushrooms being fairly sturdy also held up well. I shouldn't have added water to the sauce, other Itaki chefs out there sometimes do that but in this case it was unnecessary. Those two small changes would make this meal perfect.

I'll be making barley at some point, another thing that I'll have to guess cook time for but I suspect if I treat it like brown rice it'll probably be all right.

Too soon it was time for rehearsal, I didn't feel ready!
But I wore my "beef on Weck" shirt, and brought snacks and my trombone and mutes and everything, made myself a nice green tea, and had a pleasant walk to the theater.


The band is rehearsing upstairs in a lobby, while the cast is rehearsing on stage.
We had a good first run of the show. Tomorrow we'll do sectionals (working on specific parts in sections, mostly to get us all to agree on articulations and do note checks and such).

When I got home I was very tired, but cooked some barley in the Itaki because it takes a long time and I want to have it available to eat.

---------------------------------------------------

The next morning I got up a bit early to cook both my morning egg and some chicken in the Itaki.

TikTok: CLICK HERE to watch me make eggs and chicken in the Itaki

Walked to the theater again, and sectionals went well. I ate lunch there while everyone else went out (there doesn't seem to be a lot around honestly) and then we rehearsed for a bit more before they asked us to take an early dinner break. When we're rehearsing at the same time as the cast it can be difficult to hear ourselves over each other, if that makes sense.

Walked back to the hotel and grabbed one of our company rental cars, took it to Wegman's because I badly need plastic wrap and was also hoping to find those little silicone pot grips (not full-on oven mitts, these are smaller). I didn't find them but got the plastic wrap and some more veggies anyway.

Scarfed down dinner and tried to plan for tomorrow's meals, then back to rehearsal for a few hours.

When we were done, we helped move the drums downstairs before heading back to the hotel.
I always forget how hectic rehearsals are. Once we're on tour there's a lot of time during the day for exploring or cooking or whatever, but during "tech week" you could have rehearsals all day, or find out an extra rehearsal has been scheduled where you thought you'd be free, etc. The only thing to do is be patient and be as prepared as you can for whatever gets thrown at you.

It takes me some extra time and effort to cook all of my meals, but it means during our one-hour meal breaks I don't have to spend 15 minutes walking to pick up food, or waiting for food to be made, or trying to coordinate a Doordash to magically arrive whenever rehearsal is over.

Tomorrow we rehearse potentially from 9am to 11pm, so I'm bringing both lunch and dinner to the theater.
Salmon, barley, and green beans for lunch.
Lemon rosemary chicken, seeded bread, and avocado for dinner.
Banana, ginger snaps, and protein drink for snacks.

Once rehearsals are over the fun begins, but for now it's time to WERK.